Skip to content
Responsive image
Vendor
Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English

THE CHICKEN SISTERS

KJ Dell'Antonia

A deliciously charming story about fried chicken, family feuds, and the foibles of the human heart.
In the tiny town of Merinac, Chicken Mimi's and Chicken Frannie's have spent a century vying to be the restaurant that serves up the best fried chicken in Kansas - and the legendary bad blood between their respective owners, the Moores and the Pogociellos, has lasted just as long. But there is one person in Merinac who can't pick a side: Amanda Moore grew up working at Mimi's before she married Frannie's scion Frank Pogociello in a scandal that rocked the town. Now a widow at 35, Amanda runs Frannie's even as she tries to keep an eye on her reclusive mother, who is struggling to keep Mimi's afloat.

Tired of being caught in the middle, Amanda sends out an SOS to Food Wars, the sizzling hot reality show that promises $100,000 to the winner of their famous Restaurant Wars competition. But she never could have predicted that the TV crew's arrival would launch both families out of the frying pan and directly into the fire.

Meanwhile, the last thing that Brooklyn-based organizational guru Mae Moore, Amanda's sister, wants is to return to Merinac. But when her career implodes, Food Wars suddenly becomes her best chance to step back into the limelight. Armed with ruthless organizational skills and an obsession with keeping up appearances, Mae is certain she can help her mother make the fading Mimi's look good. And if doing so pits her against Amanda and Frannie's, well, all's fair in love and show business.

With the cameras documenting both families' every move, and the Food Wars producers digging for dirt, it's only a matter of time before old secrets resurface and the bonds of sisterhood are tested once and for all.

KJ Dell'Antonia is a contributor to New York Times and the author of How To Be a Happier Parent. She lives with her family on a small farm in New Hampshire but retains an abiding love for her childhood in Texas and Kansas.
Available products
Book

Published 2020-12-01 by Putnam

Comments

The Chicken Sisters by KJ Dell'Antonia is a delightful look at sibling relationships and the unbreakable bonds of family.

Dell'Antonia writes convincingly and sympathetically about complicated family relationships, giving Mae and Amanda each relatable flaws. The Food Wars scenes are a fun peek behind the curtain of the reality TV world, and the small-town warmth of Merinac is comfortingly quirky. A charming and satisfying story about family bonds that will make meat eaters everywhere crave fried chicken. Read more...

THE CHICKEN SISTERS is one of their 25 novels you'll want to read this summer

Be warned: you'll crave fried chicken throughout. Read more...

A charming first novel about family, regrets, and second chances. Dell'Antonia deftly deals with issues of mental illness, marriage troubles, and dreams deferred, all the while telling a funny satire of reality TV. An utter delight from start to finish.

THE CHICKEN SISTERS debuted at #4 on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list this week! (Dec. 10, 2020)

Who among us does not love a restaurant feud? KJ Dell'antonia gives us a crackling saga between Chicken Mimi's and Chicken Frannie's that goes back three generations. Thirty-five-year-old widow Amanda Moore grew up on one side of the divide before marrying herself over the gulf, and enters the two chicken shacks in a reality TV competition to sort out the true winner. Once her sister takes a side, it is all burners lit in the tiny town of Merinac, Kansas.

Nobody knows the humor and pathos of complicated family relationships better than K.J. Dell'Antonia, which is why this story about sisters and fried chicken and reality TV is such a satisfying read. It's like the comfort-food of novels: warm, memorable, and wholly original. I loved it.

THE CHICKEN SISTERS is the Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick for December! Read more...

British Commonwealth: Two Roads/John Murray Press

Mae and Amanda are spirited characters, and their foibles are told with care and humor. Recommended for Food Network and HGTV watchers, this first novel is plucky, heartwarming, and a welcome distraction from the news of the day.

This week I was delighted to catch up with a former colleague, KJ Dell'Antonia, whom many of you know from her years as the editor and lead writer of The New York Times's former parenting blog, Motherlode. KJ moved on to write books, starting with a successful parenting book, "How to Be a Happier Parent," followed by her first novel, "The Chicken Sisters," which Reese Witherspoon named on Tuesday as her book club's pick of the month - a big prize in publishing. ...